Blackhawks Prospect, Alex DeBrincat, DOMINATED The OHL Playoffs...How Good Is He?
With the way the season ended for the Blackhawks it’s natural to want to look towards the future because the present and immediate past will make you want to puke or die. When people talk about the future of the Hawks, the conversation always seems to move towards last year’s 2nd round draft pick, Alex DeBrincat. Even though he treated the OHL like Kim Jung Un with an anti-aircraft gun, he still has plenty of detractors as well. I’ve only seen DeBrincat play 5 times in the past two years. So with only a handful of games and youtube clips, I didn’t feel comfortable offering an opinion unless I talked to people more knowledgable than me. So that’s what I did. Real journalist stuff. NBD. I talked to a guy who has played with and against DeBrincat and an NHL scout. So here we go, the most comprehensive look at Alex DeBrincat on the internet.
Let’s start with the obvious:
Height: 5’7
Weight: 170lbs
Position: LW with right shot
Stats(whoa!):
I personally don’t care that DeBrincat is short. There has been no shortage of undersized players finding a ton of success in the NHL. Brad Marchand, Tyler Johnson, Johnny Gaudreau, Viktor Arvidsson, Cam Atkinson, and Mats Zuccarello have all been able to score even though they are all under 5’10. The new NHL which is faster and has cut down on some of the clutching and grabbing allows smaller players to dominate in a way that they weren’t able to in the late 90s or early 2000s.
The difference between those guys and DeBrincat is pretty obvious though. All of those guys can really skate. DeBrincat doesn’t have game-breaking speed. Those players are great in transition and scoring off the rush. That’s not really the way DeBrincat scores his goals. If you watch his goals on YouTube, the majority of them come from him finding dead areas on the ice and snapping home pucks with his elite level shot.
Obviously you’ll find highlights of DeBrincat scoring off the rush, but goals like this are his bread and butter. It’s why I don’t see any NHL comps among the current crop of undersized forwards. When I watch DeBrincat I see more of a Brett Hull type. A guy who has an innate ability to be in the right place at the right time and fire the puck home. I asked an NHL scout what he thought about Debrincat and if that was a fair comparison and this is what he said
I don’t know if the Hull thing is fair but he’s got such incredible hands. It almost looks like he cradles the puck like a lacrosse player before snapping it into the back of the net. He almost like whips it at the net sometimes. He’s a very elite offensive talent and that translates I don’t care how big you are. He’s going to be fun to watch for a long time. I think the Hull thing is fair IF you’re talking about finding soft spots around the net. Dude seems to always find a crease in the zone and obviously guys like Strome can find him which helps. But he’ll play with guys in Chicago that will find him as well. He doesn’t shoot it as hard as Brett but his shot probably has more deception
The lack of speed thing is concerning for me so I asked a player who has been on the ice with DeBrincat many times for his take on that issue and this is what he said
What’s good? yeah I mean he’s a good player def skilled little undersized though and has always been playing with the best players so don’t know what he will be like at next level but def a skill player who can score when gets the chance
ME: Can he keep up? All I ever hear about his that he cant skate that well. Is that obvious when youre on the ice with him?
Player response: Not super obvious no. But noticeable. Depends on who he’s playing with.
There is a glass half-empty and a glass-half full way to look at DeBrincat. If you’re negative you can look at him and say “He’s small, not particularly fast, and he’s had the luxury of playing with Connor McDavid and Dylan Strome who inflated his numbers”. If that’s your take then I won’t argue with you too much. I disagree though. I think DeBrincat will eventually be in the top 6. No, he doesn’t have big time speed at the moment, but that’s something he can work on as many NHL prospects do. Just go to that power skating school with Marty St Louis in Connecticut and get that extra half step. Also, in a way its really impressive that he’s been able to put up these ridiculous numbers without that high end speed. Sometimes prospects who are gifted with all-world speed aren’t able to produce in the NHL because they’ve always just out-skated everyone on the ice. It prevents them from developing hockey sense in a way because they just skate by everyone. DeBrincat is the opposite. He has what you can’t really teach. He knows where to be and how to score. In a way, that is somewhat more projectable than pure speed. In addition to hockey sense and a great release, DeBrincat is known for being a tough little sonofabitch and being unafaid to go to the net. Like any 19 year-old prospect he needs to get stronger and faster, but with a little development DeBrincat could be a great LW option to hammer home one-timers coming from Patrick Kane. Definitely a boom or bust type prospect, but I think DeBrincat will eventually be a 25-30 goal guy in a Blackhawks uniform. ETA 2018.